Review: Play by Play

Reviewed by Shelly

This is a cute short read. Blogger, journalist and former college football player Jake Dublin writes about what he knows – football. He also likes to drop in the occasional line about what’s going on in his personal life. Nothing wrong with that, many bloggers do that. Where Jake runs into trouble is when he meets his new neighbor, Elevator Girl aka Sophie James, and decides to not only give his fans something extra; he also decides to be not so honest with Sophie about who he is and what he does.

It’s hard enough to deliver a good story in the traditional way much less the way that Kate Donovan carried this one off. As each character has their own voice, much of Jake’s character is developed through his blog and that’s the way that Donovan told it. I thought that was genius because it’s not only Jake we get to know this way but his readers too – the comments for his posts were harsh, insightful, and just laugh out loud funny with some of them.

For such a short read, Donovan did a very good job in letting the reader get to know her characters. Jake was a likable guy who’s prior unfortunate circumstance left him reeling. Even with that, he didn’t have the baggage that I was expecting, instead he’s just a nice normal guy who loves what he does and has some good friends who support him. Did I happen to mention that he’s still got his college football body? Well he does and Sophie just can’t get enough.

Growing up in a family of men and boys with the requisite sports obsession, Sophie is not going to get involved with a man who’s obsessed like her family were. But she can’t help the feelings that she’s developing for Jake. The chemistry was sizzling with these two and Donovan conveyed it all with not one sex scene. So if that’s your thing, give this one a try. If you like the sexy times, I would still suggest this one because the story although not fast paced with action is still a good one.